90 around the hips, required complex undergarments, making it unthinkable to get along with a Testing homemade article, as was commonplace in the i86os. The widespread popularity of corsets the Limits gave the ready-to-wear underclothing industry a boost and caused a growing number of illus- trations of these garments to appear in magazines of the 18708. But Gervex's Marion took her corset off. Irrespective of a corset's style and manufacture, removing one's stays had long been, iconographically, a symbol of female dishonor, of tak- ing leave of social decencies. A woman shown next to her abandoned corset had abandoned morality. That her corset is represented inside out inflects that condition of surrender. It en- forces the disarray of the situation and suggests the haste with which clothing was removed and discarded. It denotes the sexual impetuosity of the woman and hence her hyper sexuality or deviance. Gervex painstakingly showed the pattern of laces. This is another detail that implies the haste of their lovemaking, because the still-laced corset shows that Marion evidently got out of it the quick way, by releasing the clasps up the front (or perhaps Rolla did the job?) rather than going to the trouble of unlacing. It also shows, perhaps needless to say, that Jacques Rolla was not involved in the old erotic ritual of helping his lover unlace her corset, although the showy red exterior and plain white interior of Marion's corset are meant to be seen and appreciated on rather than off. If we assume that Marion undid the undergarment herself, then the corset, in combination with the tranquil nude, suggests that her venting of sensual energy was voluntary and rather enthusiastic as well. The male viewer always welcomed the illusion of sexual enthusiasm or at least cooperation in a nude. The ideal nude did not have to convey (and could not have con- veyed) the painting's complete erotic message. It was shifted to the surrounding emblems, that defensive armor so ostentatiously and carelessly laid aside. The body is automatically eroticized and rendered deviant by the abandoned corset. Another aspect of the shock in associating that body with that garment was that her perfect form (pace Alexandre Weill) does not appear to require molding. It was vital, however, to the impact of the painting that Marion's body be as it is: an agitated, alert, imperfect body might have suggested rape or at least a lack of cooperation, in which case the picture would have functioned altogether differently. Thus, the calm of the body vouchsafes the indelible impression of Marion's willingness, of her professional, prostitu- tional subordination to male desire, which she appears to have enjoyed. Paradoxically, Gervex's adherence to the conventions of the nude, at least with regard to the body, was a cause of the painting's removal. It in fact called attention to the contradictions usually masked by the nude. The design and color of Marion's corset informed the astute observer at the same time that, unlike Nana, she was no "aristocrat of vice." Marion's corset is plainer and shorter than that worn in the 1880 cartoon "Breda Street" (fig. 46), and its simplicity is a far cry from the styl- ishness and luxury of Nana's sky-blue satin corset-cuirasse. Marion's lacks lace decoration, is not made of comparably delicate and expensive fabric, and, judging from the limpness of it, is certainly not the cuirasse type then in fashion, lacking as it does the proper busk. (It was the 'busk that created the hard restraining surface that forced the breasts in and up to create a so- 125 called pouter pigeon uplift and an exaggerated concavity at the waist.) Marion's corset appears to be a cheap ready-made one, bought in a grand magasin, and as such it exemplifies the general availability of relatively standardized, machine-made costume at the time. Brightly colored corsets were trendy items. Recent arrivals on the fashion market, they became common only in the late 18708.